BARDEHLE PAGENBERG successful for Qualcomm: German Federal Patent Court revoked the German part of a European patent owned by ParkerVision GmbH

By judgment dated October 17, 2018 (docket no. 5 Ni 58/16 (EP)), the German Federal Patent Court revoked the German part of the European patent 1 206 831 B1, owned by ParkerVision GmbH in its entirety in nullity proceedings instituted by Qualcomm Inc. The attacked patent relates to a modem for a wireless local area network and a respective method.

ParkerVision GmbH’s European patent 1 206 831 (“the patent”) provides a particular circuit for frequency upconverting a signal to a higher frequency used for transmission over a wireless medium. This may be used for instance in WLAN-modems or mobile phones.

Based on said patent, ParkerVision GmbH had sued Apple and LG Electronics for alleged patent infringement in 2016. In view of this, Qualcomm Inc., which is one of the major suppliers for chips for wireless telecommunication devices, decided to file a nullity complaint against ParkerVision GmbH in 2016. The respective infringement cases at the Regional Court of Munich were already stayed in the meantime in light of said nullity complaint. In the present decision of the Federal Patent Court, the invalidity of the patent was confirmed. Although ParkerVision GmbH also tried to defend the patent in limited form based on five auxiliary requests, the Federal Patent Court ultimately followed Qualcomm Inc.’s arguments and revoked the German part of the patent in its entirety.

The nullity proceedings are part of an international patent litigation between Qualcomm Inc. and ParkerVision GmbH as well as related ParkerVision companies.